Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Jess
Under almost every other circumstance, Harper’s restaurant, Wander & Whisk, was exactly the place I’d want to spend a Saturday night. Especially when all my girlfriends were there with me. Good food, delicious drinks, and great friends. It was the perfect combination for a good time.
And it would have been, too, if I weren’t currently wearing a white sash with Bride bedazzled in sparkling pink rhinestones across my chest.
The sash itched against my skin, a reminder I couldn’t escape. Every smile, every clink of glasses brought me back to right how I’d ended up here in the first place.
I couldn’t stop replaying what had happened after I left the trails that day. When I returned to pick up my car, Trevor was waiting for me on the front step.
This doesn’t have to end, Jess.
He’d said it calmly, like we were negotiating terms instead of talking about our relationship. Like there was no other option worth considering.
Think about the development. We’ll lose too much.
That was it. Nothing about his feelings or love. It was beyond that now. He’d just folded his arms and reminded me that if I walked away from the marriage, I walked away from the project, too.
And from my investment.
From everything.
He hadn’t needed to spell it out. He knew exactly how much I’d put in. He knew about my parents. And the money they’d trusted me with.
If you’re out of the union, he’d said, you’re out of all of it.
Exhausted and cornered, I didn’t have a choice.
I said yes.
That memory clung to me as I sat there, surrounded by my friends, pink cocktails, and toilet paper wedding gowns, pretending this was a celebration and not a countdown.
The silly games weren’t helping.
“Do you want to be the bride, Jess?”
“What?” My head snapped up to see Charli standing in front of me with a roll of toilet paper in each hand.
“The bride.” She tipped her head and gave me a strange look. “You know…for the dress game.”
“Right.” I shook my head and tried to put a smile on my face. After all, they were all there for me.
Even if it was the last place I wanted to be.
I looked up at Charli, who was waiting for my answer. “I think I’m going to sit this one out, if that’s okay?”
My friend looked at me carefully, but finally nodded and sat down next to me. “I know these bridal showers can be a lot. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I looked down at my glass of prosecco. It was my third one, which should have been a warning. I didn’t usually drink like this, but tonight I needed the noise in my head to quiet down.
Maybe it was the bubbles that had loosened my tongue, or just the fact that if I didn’t say anything, I felt like I would explode, but…
“Can I tell you something?”
Charli nodded and set the rolls of toilet paper on the table in front of her. “Anything. You know that.”
“You can’t tell anyone, though. Promise me.”
Charli mimed the action of zipping her lips and locking them with a pretend key. It made me smile, but only for a moment.
“Trevor and I…” I took a breath. “It’s not what people think.” And before I could change my mind, I told her everything.
When I was finished, she stared at me, her eyes sad and her mouth open. “Jess…”
“I know.” The word came out rough. Saying it out loud only made it more real. Made me feel even more trapped. “I know,” I said again. “But we decided to go forward. I have to. It’s just easier this way.”
“Is it?”
I rolled the stem of the wine glass in my hand. “I don’t know. I think so.” I drained the rest of my drink and reached for the bottle on the table. It was either that or cry. And I didn’t think I could handle explaining my tears to everyone else. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I promised I wouldn’t,” Charli said, and I believed her. “But…you don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t know about that.” I tossed back another glass of bubbles before putting the glass down a little too hard on the table and looking at her. “But I do know what I do have to do.” Charli tipped her head in question, and I didn’t miss her glance toward my empty-again glass. “Go dancing!”
If I stayed sitting much longer, I might say something I couldn’t take back. Or worse, admit the truth.
I jumped up from the couch, my shout earning me looks from my other friends who were in the process of creating toilet paper wedding gowns. “Who’s in?” I asked with enthusiasm, fueled by alcohol. “Let’s take this party to the dance floor.”
Preston
I was wet and cold when we got back to the SAR office, debriefed from the water rescue we’d just undertaken, and changed into warm clothes.
But, besides a bone-deep exhaustion seeping through every part of my body, I felt alive.
Humming with electricity and energy, the way I always was after a rescue.
Every call out was different. You never knew what you were going to get when the emergency line rang, but the one thing you were guaranteed was to get your blood pumping and the adrenaline surging.
It was one of the main reasons why I loved working with Search and Rescue. At my core, I was an adrenaline junkie. At least, that’s what my mom and brothers had always said. Even when I was young.
It was the main reason Mom had encouraged me to sign up as soon as I was old enough, despite the risks. She figured that I was going to do risky things anyway, so I might as well be properly trained and responsible for helping others.
She had a point, and SAR had become one of the best parts of my life.
It didn’t always go as well as it had on the river earlier, however, when we were called out for a capsized canoe with two individuals stranded on a log.
That had turned out to be a pretty straightforward rescue, with the biggest consequence for the adventurers—who fortunately were prepared for a canoe trip, but not for the early-season conditions—being a few scrapes and scratches and a mild case of hypothermia.
Sometimes, they didn’t end so positively.
Those were hard ones. And not a part of the job I liked to focus on.
The reality was that the mountains and wilderness surrounding us could be dangerous.
Especially if you weren’t properly prepared.
Which was why groups like Teens in the Trails were so important to me.
The more people I could help educate on the great outdoors, the better.
“What do you think, Pres? Are you up for a beer?”
I finished hanging up our gear in the SAR shed and looked at my buddy and partner, Kane Nelson.
“The brewery?” Like Kane, I always had a hard time coming down after a rescue mission. There was no point in heading home quite yet. “Or you have something else in mind?”
My buddy laughed, his brows wiggling. “It’s Saturday night. Let’s go to Brickhouse. I think they have a band tonight, which means…”
“Women.” I laughed, shaking my head. Kane was one of my only single friends, which would have made him a great wingman if I’d ever been interested in picking up women. Which I wasn’t. Not usually. And lately, not at all.
Not when there was only one woman who kept showing up in my fantasies. It was completely inappropriate, and even if she wasn’t engaged to be married, there was no way anything was ever going to happen between Jess and me. Not with all our history.
But I couldn’t seem to tell my subconscious that. No matter how many times I tried.
“Sure,” I agreed. “I could stand to blow off a little steam.” Maybe losing myself on the dance floor in the arms of a beautiful woman would be exactly what I needed.
When we arrived at Brickhouse fifteen minutes later, the place was already packed with familiar faces. There was nothing like a live band during shoulder season before all the tourists flocked back into town to get the locals out in droves.
Kane and I made our way to the bar, greeting a dozen people we knew along the way. With our drinks in hand, we turned to lean back against the bar top and survey the crowd.
“Anyone you have your eye on?” Kane asked after a few sips of our drinks. “You haven’t mentioned anyone lately.”
That wasn’t unusual. I hadn’t dated anyone in over a year, and even that wasn’t serious. I shook my head, not willing to tell him the truth. “Not really. You?”
He used his head to gesture toward a small group of women, most of whom I recognized. “Mya is pretty cute,” he said. “She’s also pretty shy. I don’t see her out much.”
“Shy? That doesn’t seem like your type.”
“My type is cute.” He laughed. “Besides, she’s a chocolatier, and that’s pretty sexy. And…you know I like a challenge.”
I couldn’t deny that. “So are you going to ask her out?”
My friend spun on me, his eyes wide. “I thought maybe I’d start with a dance.”
“That’s not a no.”
“I’m not signing up to get married or anything.” Kane laughed. “That feels a bit extreme.”
The conversation I’d had with Jess a week earlier about love popped into my head again. Telling her I didn’t believe in love still felt unbelievable—even to me. Absolute bullshit.
Of course, I believed in love.
How could I not when I’d watched my brothers find the loves of their lives?
Practical?
I’d told her that love wasn’t practical. Why had I said that?
What kind of asshole said something like that?
I blew out a slow breath, because I knew exactly what kind of asshole said it.
“Pres?” Kane jabbed his elbow into my ribs. “Earth to Preston.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that your arch nemesis?”
I turned to look where he was pointing, just in time to see a group of women walking through the doors.
They were all laughing and wearing bright-pink sashes.
In the center of the group, wearing a white sash that, even from my distance across the room, I could see was bedazzled with the word Bride, was the one woman who’d been occupying an unreasonable amount of my thoughts lately.
Jess.
“Looks like they’re celebrating a stagette.” Kane tossed back the rest of his beer. “And you know what that means?” He wiggled his brows.
I knew exactly what that meant.
Jess was going ahead with the wedding. I swallowed hard, my jaw clenching.
After everything she’d told me, the concerns she had. Asking whether I believed in love. She’d never outright said she had doubts, but it didn’t take a mind reader to see she wasn’t happy.
Dammit.
“Horny bridesmaids,” Kane answered his own question when it was clear that I wasn’t going to play along.
I shook my head and downed the rest of my beer. “You do know that most of those women are married or in relationships, right?”
“But some of them aren’t.” My friend laughed and nudged me again. “Let’s go.”